


The start of it all

by William404



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/William404/pseuds/William404
Summary: Not long after a job, V wanted nothing more than to simply unwind. That is until she is given an offer for more than she usually sees. From nomad to gun-slinging investigator, V finds herself in a mix of all sorts of trouble. The trick is, knowing when to quit.
Kudos: 5





	1. A score that starts it all.

“Hello everyone and this Network News 54 reporting to you live here in the outskirts of Night City and it has been one hell of a day. The Lazarus group, with representatives from Militech, along with associates from the Arasaka today has made very little headway in terms of a property dispute. In other news, some high-class citizens have gone missing in the downtown area so if you are anyone important, be safe out there…” the T.V. screen cuts to black in the outside stall from the owner.  
“Hey Mac, I was watching that?” a woman with black hair with neon green highlights shouts with a load of food in her mouth at the old man.  
“Sorry V, but you know me. I don’t care what you are doing, just eat and leave.” The old man responds with a grin, knowing full well she wasn’t paying much attention anyway.  
She grunts and finishes her noodles and gets off the bar stool. Her thick metal boots echoes on the steel floor. The pistol at her hip clanging on its clasps as she reaches for her wallet. The smell of steam and exhaust is too common to her in this low-end area, but it was the closest place she knew to get good food without having haggle to not get garbage mixed in with it. That or she had to venture further into the heart of the city, but she wasn’t ready just yet to go back after her recent contract.  
Electronic billboards and robotic advertisements littered the streets and alleys everywhere she went. She loved this town but sometimes she could feel the tug of the open road still pull at her. She had to get back to her studio apartment considering she still had a few days before she had to look for another contract to earn creds she needed. When she finally got to her place, she was greeted with something she wasn’t expecting.  
“Hey hey look who decided to come home.” A man greeted her with an awkward smile.  
“I didn’t think you’d come back.”  
V looked on in shock as the man she met last night is still at her place even though she told him to leave the same time she left. She walked past him as he tried to go in for hug. She didn’t need this right now and she had to get this man to leave.  
“Right… anyway, what are you still doing here? I thought I told you to like… leave.” V, clearly upset at the notion he decided to stay, irked her in soo many ways.  
He then starts to walk toward her but she wasn’t having it. She pulled out her pistol and kept it at the ready. She wanted him to not mistake her kindness from the night before as an invitation. She meant business and he knew it which forced him to rethink his next move. She then had to put in very little effort to have him leave. He gathered his things and went out the door.  
“Jeez, finally.” She breathed a sigh of relief as she made her way to the other side of the room.  
She opened the shutters to let in some light and overlooked the city. Cars flew in mid air as well as on the ground. Layers of slums and apartments littered the surroundings with neon signs saturating the scenery. Just as she sat to admire the view, a knock echoed from her door. With a long sigh she stood up and stormed toward the door.  
“Listen dude, I told you to get lost. I’m not…” she speaks loudly as she opens the metal door only to find a tall man in a suite with two bodyguards at both sides of him.  
“…interested.”  
She makes a pop sound with her mouth as she is caught off guard, not expecting a corpo to pay her a visit anytime soon. Clearly looking annoyed, the man stood there waiting for a greeting from her.  
“Are you the one they call V?” the man speaks, his eyes covered in thick black glasses with matching top and pants.  
“Well that would depend on who ‘they’ are.” V snaps back, not wanting to sound coy.  
“let’s save the pleasantries for another time, shall we. I come on urgent business that requires your expertise.” The man confines in her, not wanting to stand outside as he looks from side to side down the hallways.  
V then signals him to come in but motions for the two to stay outside. He agrees and orders them to stand outside to stay vigilant. She puts her pistol on her desk and takes a seat in her lounge chair, offering the tall man a drink as she sits down. He refuses and gets down to business.  
“I have heard from some associates of yours that you are good at finding people, am I correct?” he begins to speak as he lowers his glasses, revealing augmented eyes that were clearly replaced with cybernetics.  
“Well, me and my friend are good at what we do, if the price is right mister…” she responds in kind, not yet knowing what the mans’ name is.  
“Call me mister S.”  
“Well mister S, if you need to find someone, look no further.” V props her feet up on the desk to make herself comfortable.  
“Regardless of your fee, I represent an important client who needs someone found who has gone missing. They are medically insured with the best insurance can buy.” He begins to plead his case, his voice intense as he lays out the issue he faces.  
“Let me guess, Trauma Team International?” V sports a smirk on her face as she crosses her arms.  
She has had dealings with the group before. Only the super-rich are able to acquire their services as they provide not only medical treatments, but they also provide paramilitary style emergency evac in even the slightest of hostile situations for their clients.  
“One in the same. The situation is that one of my clients has someone gone missing and their implanted transponder is being scrambled, so we are not able to get a fix on their location.” Mister S continues to lay it out for her.  
“And for that reason, you need my services, right?”  
Mister S simply nods and hands her a chip that marks the location of the last known whereabouts of the missing person. She inserts he small chip in her neck port and sees that a woman went missing in the downtown district, remembering hearing about people going missing from the media news segment from earlier. She then looks over the date and time and sees that the person went missing two days ago. Then sees the price the man is willing to pay which is well over her normal fee.  
“I believe you and I have an agreement? Are you able to get this done?” Mister S speaks sternly, not wanting to waste one more minute in a hell hole such as hers.  
“Alright my big well-dressed sir. Just so you know, that area is run by scavengers who steal implants, so the odds of this person still being alive are… slim to say the least.”  
“Just get it done. You have 24 hours, or I find someone else.” He says as he stands and turns to walk out.  
“Well, at least this guy leaves on his own. I didn’t have to threaten the guy to leave at gunpoint.” V says to herself.  
V just sits there for a moment as he walks out and slams the door behind him. Her mind wanders but she knows exactly where to start looking; however, she firsts calls up her friend Jackie and tells him to meet her downtown. Once she gets off the phone, she quickly changes and gathers her needed equipment for a long day’s work.  
The downtown area was bustling with life. Mixes of humans and cybernetic signs and stalls, all going about their day. Meshes of flesh, metal and electronics intertwining in some peoples’ bodies, all viding for their own personal goals. At the last known location of the missing woman, Jackie came up next to her.  
“How the hell we suppose to find anything in this place. Too much foot traffic. Amazed these knuckleheads decided to do this in the middle of the day.” Jackie speaks in frustration at all the people bustling back and forth.  
“Are you done?” V says as she hands him the chip mister S gave her.  
“We can’t possibly figure out who took her from all this mess, so my guess is we find someone who knows who operates here. What you think?”  
Jackie finishes the last bit of information on the chip before he comes back to her. He nods and approves of the job at hand. They began to scour the area for cameras that would have been overseeing the road. V found one that looked like it would show something.  
“Hey Jackie, I’m going to plug into the camera over there. Make sure to lookout for me.” V says as she pulls out a cord and toss it to plug into the video feed.  
He motions for her to begin and watches for files that date back to the time of the kidnapping. She looks through various times and finally come up on the woman and sees a van pull up and quickly take her in the middle of the day. She focuses on anything that would stand out but it’s a common van with no tags or markings. She began to frustrate herself before she noticed a man on the corner acting like he was waiting for it all to happen.  
“Ha, gotcha.” V proclaims as she exists the camera interface.  
“You get anything V?” Jackie looked around and found her finishing up.  
She nods and points over to the corer that overlooks the pedestrian crossing. The man in the video recording isn’t there, but she has a hunch that he will turn up eventually. Now all she has to do is wait a few minutes to see if she is right. As the day goes by, an hour passes and Jackie is about to go off and look elsewhere until the man in in the video appears.  
“Here we go.” V states as she checks her pistol to make sure a round is chamber, just in case things turn sour.  
She and Jackie walk with earnest. They look around t make sure the man is alone before they approach. Just before they get up to the man V shouts.  
“Hey buddy! I want to talk to yah.” She shouts out in the crowd as they are mere feet away.  
The man looks over and he immediately turns and begins to run off. He is wearing a simple beaten up vest with a white shirt and brown pants. His image screams ‘scavenger’. The man doesn’t get too far considering Jackie cuts him off and body checks the mans’ small frame into the wall.  
“Now, why would you run? I jut want to talk.” V begins to say as she then points her pistol and nestles the muzzle into the man’s gut.  
He stands against the wall in horror as he is cornered by the duo. He has no options left than to cooperate as he is shaking in fear. He has no idea how they found him, but he knew that if he didn’t do as told, he might meet his end.  
“Listen lady, all I do is look out for them, I swear.” The man is in a panic, his arms up in the air.  
“What group took the lady from two days ago in broad daylight? I know you know who I’m talking about.” V speaks intently, making him know she means business.  
The man tries to remember but falters. He is met with a swift knee in the groin as a reminder of his situation. He keels over in pain but is lifted up by Jackie as to not fall to the ground.  
“Alright. I don’t know the guys personally, but I do know where they operate at. Its over in the slums south of here. I’ll put the address in for you.” The man stumbles as he reels in pain and gives her the location of their base of operations.  
“Why thank you. See, was that so hard?” V responds to the man as she gets the information.  
Jackie tosses the man to the ground and walks up to V, a little bit concerned for her.  
“If it’s a low-end group of scavengers that strip parts from people, they are probably trigger happy too and higher than the Night center building.” Jackie voices his concern.  
“Yeah I am well aware of that big guy. But we should probably head over there now. I am sure the little dude told them that they might be getting visitors.”  
“You’re probably right.”  
The two set out in Jackie’s car and cruised down to the slum areas. Along the causeway, meager shanties and homelessness is rampant. Groups of people huddle around makeshift marketplaces and gather for shelter and food. V and Jackie come to their location and see a black van outside a building complex that looks run down from many years of neglect.  
“Looks like we are here. You ready?” Jackie look over to V as he pulls out a large caliber pistol from his vest.  
“You need to ask big guy? Time to rescue a damsel in distress. Or at least what’s left of her anyway.”  
As the two walks out of the car along side of the building, they are greeted with two of the gang members. They try to tell them to stop, but V uses a cybernetic coding to scramble the mans’ mind and causes his augmentations to turn on him, firing a round at his friend. The man falls dead and then he turns the gun on himself, blowing a round out of his head in a heap of blood and circuit sparks.  
“Nice V.” Jackie states as he walks over to the fallen men.  
“You like? Picked it up from the proceeds of our last job.” V replies as she kneels and picks a key out of the mans’ pocket.  
“Bingo.”  
The two then unlock the door in the front and are greeted with rounds of gunfire and shouting. Bullets ricochet off the walls and come near inches from the duo as they take cover behind a desk. V takes out a stimulant inhaler and she breathes deep as the vapor is sucked in her lungs. Time seems to low as she moves away from the desk and fires off several rounds, all striking and killing the men who stand in their way.  
“Hey V, I think one of them said we were cops. Get a load of that?” Jackie giggles as he and V begin to make their way toward an elevator.  
“Pfft. Like they would give a shit about people like this. They are too far up the copro’s asses, they have no idea how to do their jobs anymore.”  
As the two walked over to the elevator, they ready themselves for more trouble the higher they go. Moments go by as they stand in the metal box, anxious to get to the floor to get this job done. As the door opens to the desired floor, V and Jackie are ready.  
“Ready. Go.” V says as she lets him move out first to check the area.  
They both move smoothly from one area to the next. They get to the end of the hall and come across a bared door. They knock with a metallic clang and a thug guard comes to open. As soon as he does, Jackie fires a round into his head, felling him in an instant. The door crashes open and a hail of gun fire from the two shred the two other gang members that are inside.  
After the exchange is over, bodies with missing cybernetic augmentations are scattered all around. Their implants ripped from their housing in various body parts. One woman is on the table with missing eyes and half her face ripped off.  
“Not our gal. We gotta keep looking.” V says as they move to the next room.  
“Mother fuckers!”  
A man dressed in blood and oily cloths shouts as he sees the two and warns three other members to them. His chest is ripped open from an explosive round fired by Jackie, the barrel of his pistol is smoking with a red hot tip. Bullets fly and various pieces of furniture are being torn to shreds. Body parts from scavenged humans are littering the floor the man falls to the ground. Its not long before another one is taken out when V fires a round that punches through the boards and tears open a hole in the side of another mans’ face.at that moment, Jackie stands and runs toward the other, forcing the man through the wall as he breaks his neck on impact.  
V then finds the third and opens fire on him as he tries to point his gun toward Jackie. She pumps several rounds into him before he quickly falls like a stone. They bother survey the area and chuckle at one another. They make their way cautiously to turn the corner and find an open space with a man carrying a heavy machine gun.  
“Suck on this, assholes!” He yells out as he fires heavy rounds that rip through the wall and come inches away from turning V into a bloody mess.  
“Shit” V and Jackie shout as they take cover.  
Round after round flies through, destroying everything around them as they come up with what to do next. the splintering of wood and destruction of drywall rains around them as the smell of gunpowder chokes the air. Persistent slurs and curses exist the mans mouth as he continues to pop off rounds frantically. As the man fires wildly, V comes up with an idea to take care of this.  
“Hey, distract him will yah?” V exclaims over the thunderous roar of the gun.  
V then darts across the floor and out the window to hang on a side scaffolding. She then slowly looks through he window and finds the man wielding heavy machine gun just firing rounds off randomly. She then takes aim and squeezes off a few rounds of her own, striking him without killing him.  
“Jackie. Now.” She shouts.  
He bursts through the door and wrestles the weapon away from him, blasting the man with his own gun. He stands over him in victory as V joins him, but they know they have someone to still find. They both go over to the spare room in the flat and find a woman laying in a bath tub full of ice.  
“Shit. That’s her. We found her. There’s barely a pulse.” V states as she pulls the woman from the tub.  
“Here Jackie, a damn signal scrambler. Call the TTI, let them know they need…”  
“I already gave them a shout they’ll be here soon.” Jackie replies as he helps her up.  
In a matter of a minute or more, a group of hospital choppers equipped with state-of the-art wares and a group of armed paramedics, swooped down and surveyed the scene. V set the woman down on the ground and moved, listening to orders given to her to move back. She didn’t move back far enough because one of the team members shoved her to the ground with the butt of his rifle and gathered the woman on a stretcher and as soon as they came, they were gone.  
“Mind giving us a ride?” V asks rhetorically as they leave.  
“Hey V, check this out.” Jackie calls her over toward the desk that was at one of the corners of the living room.  
He was going through the computer that sat on the desk and came across notes and messages that was received in several days. One message was written to the gang leader stating that someone was giving them targets.  
_“Now I want your upmost assurance that you will acquire the target. You and I both know who she, so I want this done quickly. I will wire the money to you once I have received her implants. -W-“_ an encoded letter written to the gang by someone who wanted the woman taken.  
“What do you think?” Jackie asks as he looks over at V.  
“Take it, but don’t mention it to mister S. I have a feeling we will need it one day. You never know.” V speaks as she shrugs and tucks her pistol back in her holster.  
She then signals to the man that the job has been completed and that he will send the money over to her in a days-time. She walks out of the room and looks around, noticing all the bullet holes and damage to the area.  
“So Jackie, care for a night out? Night is still young.” V asks, but she already knows the answer.  
“No, I’m good. Ill drop you off and I’m gonna head home. Head is pounding.”  
As the night draws to a close, the two leave with just alittle bit more money than they started.


	2. When the family calls

“Knock Knock” the door leading to V’s apartment shakes as the pounding on her door continues. She lays curled up in her bed, not wanting to deal with anything since her run ins with the scavengers just hours before. Begrudgingly, she slowly snakes her way from the sheets and casually walks over to unlock her door.  
“Alright alright, I heard the pounding the first time.” She answers the door as a man rushes in and immediately closes it behind him.  
“The fu…”  
She is silenced by his hand covering her mouth, wanting to keep her quit as he looks through the peep hole and sees two armed men rushing by. Just then, he feels a barrel of a gun nestled onto his stomach. A feeling he is all too familiar with. She mumbles something through his fingers, so he releases her.  
“Ok bro, you have about three seconds to tell me what the fuck you are doing.” V is furious, not wanting to tolerate anyone barging in her space, let alone a guy muzzle her.  
“You’re right and I’m sorry, but you are the only other person I know of that might help me.” The man stammers as he tries to gather his wits.  
“One…” V starts to count as she points the pistol at him, letting him know she isn’t messing around.  
The man stumbles as he backs away from her, noticing she isn’t playing games. He realizes that he tried to get into the wrong place and he just may have put himself in a more dangerous situation.  
“Just hear me out. I was running from these guys who mean to kidnap me or worse, so I knocked on your door.” He says as he tries to reason with her.  
“You woke me up from a really god dream by pounding on my door and then you tried to muzzle me. Two…” she spoke as she put her finger on the trigger, making it know that she has an itch she wants to scratch.  
“Oh shit look…” he grows anxious, trying hard to figure out what to say.  
“Someone from the Aldercados told me to find you. That’s all I know. They told me where to find you but then these guys start following me. That’s it.”  
The man gets on his knees, begging her to not shoot. His knees trembling and his body shaking. He began to sweat profusely as he had no idea what was going to happen. Here he was hired to just deliver a message, and now he is stuck between two armed guys chasing him and a woman who is wanting to shoot him.  
“Wait, someone from the nomad nation got ahold of you? What did they want?” V was shocked as she heard what he said.  
She lowered her gun and helped the man up. Seeing he clearly isn’t any threat to her. She still wanted to know why someone from her home wanted to contact her now of all times. She knows she still feels the urge to roam the badlands and beyond, away from the city setting.  
“They just told me to give you this. Nothing more. They told me where to find you and that’s all, I swear.” The man pulls out a chip and hands it to her with trembling hands.  
“Fine, now get out.” V says as she opens the door.  
The man breaths a sigh of relief and wastes no time leaving. He shouts a bye as he runs out, eager to get far away and to avoid the others that chased him there. She looks out the hallway, seeing if she can make out anyone unusual lurking about but finds nobody she doesn’t recognize.  
She then shuts the door and sits in her lounge chair, inserting the chip in her port the side of her head. Her vision goes to black and then pops up a few dusty riders with two armed mercenaries.  
“V, I hope this gets to you. Meet us outside the city near the dilapidated bridge east of the gate. Your family needs you to do us a favor that we know you won’t refuse.” A man of the group spoke in uneasy voice crackling due to the low quality of the message.  
V then pushed on the chip to eject it and sets it on the desk. She told herself she would have no choice but to go back to them if they ever needed help, but she never thought it would come this soon. She then gathered her things together. She put on a hardened leather jacket over a light shirt with jeans. Her gloves allowed her to have better grip and she strapped her pistol in her side holster.  
“Right. Let’s get this shit over with.” She mumbles under her breath and she readies herself to leave.  
V is no stranger to the badlands outside the city. In fact, she relishes in the openness of it all. She gets into her car that was black with dark neon green trimming along the sides. She turns her on and guns it forward, entering the highway as she passes by vehicles as if they were standing still. Weaving in and out of traffic, she enjoys the thrill of riding. After some time passes, she finally comes up to the exit to get out of the city where shell meet with the contact.  
“Oh shit, there she is.” A big burly man outstretches his arms.  
V comes roaring up to the sport in her car, coming to a stop after she drifts in a circle around the group standing there waiting for her. The man could do nothing but smile as to see her again. Him and the others as well excluding the two heavily armed mercenaries that stood next to them as they cheers.  
“Hah! You still got it.” He shouts as he walks toward her as the dust settles around him and the group.  
“You damn right. It’s only been what? 5 years?” V says as she exits her car, her hair blowing in the wind.  
The heat was dry and dust swirled all around them. She went in and gave a small greeting to her Nomad cousins. They wore scavenged clothing and gear they found along the treacherous roads of the Midwest.  
“So, down to the nit and gritty. Why did you send this frightened guy up to fetch me? Want me to do circles around you all like I did as a scout?” V teased as she was eager to figure why she came all this way.  
“About that. V meet a representative of the Mox. A group…” the man begins but is cut off.  
“Yeah I’ve heard of you guys. Great work. Protecting the girls and boys that do sex work. I gotta hand it to you all, a hard job I’m sure.” V smiles as she reaches to shake the hand of one of the two that stand in front of her brandishing long rifles.  
“I wish I could say the feeling is mutual, but your friends here say you are an excellent tracker. We need you to find someone for us.” A tall black man stood in front of V, his eyes covered in slim sunglasses.  
Him and his associate stood there, poised if they were about to go into battle. A woman stood next to the man also clad in impressive armor. They were part of a year-old group that set itself on protecting the men and women who work the streets for money.  
“Well.” V looks at the two and back to her nomad friends.  
“I can help you, but it won’t be for free of course. That and I’ll need any information about the person you’re looking for.”  
“No problem. Lets get to it then.”  
Over the course of an hour, V was explained about everything that has happened. A woman that works at a strip club that Elizabeth Borden owned in her living years, was taken to the outskirts of the city. The Mox group tracked her down to where they stood but feared to venture further. They needed someone who was familiar with the area as well as have the city born groups’ interest in mind.  
V found herself in the driver seat once again, but this time it was in a nomad doom buggy. Completely suited up with reinforced bars, plating and weaponry to bear death down on anyone that crossed her path. She nearly missed the feeling entirely if she wasn’t called the bustle of the city more. Her new home.  
“Let’s roll.” V shouted out as she revved the engine, the monstrous roar of a makeshift engine from scavenged parts to make a truly robust beast of a machine.  
Across the barrens, she drove the car with reckless abandon. Hitting tight turns and corners, to catching air as she drove up ramps. She almost got lost in the nostalgia of it all before she caught something unfamiliar in the area she was at. The wraights. A more aggressive nomad faction that shared neighboring territory with the Aldecados, are only know to venture near if there was a job to do.  
“Shit. I was hoping to avoid that.” V speaks to herself as she sees tire tracks that doesn’t belong to any of her known nomads.  
She then switches things up and brings her armored buggy to a crawl to follow the trail. She has a hunch that this will lead to more information about the abducted woman. But after following the trail for some time, she came to its end. a group of rival vehicles were gathered in an abandoned factory, perfect area to cover anything you wanted to keep secret.  
“Com. Mark my location and send live feed to the Mox. I might need their aid in this.” V speaks into a small microphone to relay information to the ones that hired her.  
“We received. On our way to your location.” A voice came over the radio and rung in her ear as she laid on the ground, still scouting the location.  
Night falls and she is then joined by the other two. She isn’t concerned with the other nomads considering this is a city matter; therefore, they wont risk lives for outsiders. The black man is queued in what has happened up until this point.  
“Let me see here. Ill see if she is there. She put in a chip that’ll be pinged if she is within one-hundred yards from her location.” The man scans and finds a ping, marking that she is there.  
“Shit, I could have used that. Such is life. Let’s move.” V states as she is now ready to move in.  
As they make their way to close the gap between them and the building, a man dressed in heavy leather makes his way out the door to light up a smoke. He looks up and just manages to see the trio right before the tall woman squeezes off a round from her rifle. The sound was muffled due to a silencer, so the shot wasn’t heard over the loud music that blared in the background.  
“Ready?” V asks as she positions herself to one side of the door, now unguarded.  
“Punch it.”  
Within a second, the door is pushed open by the whining of the mans’ arms that used cybernetics to bust open the heavy doors. V and the woman rush to one side, popping off rounds that fell two foes clad in similar lather armor. In the midst of the chaos, several other nomads took notice and sounded the alarms, stopping the heavy music and switched to old sirens.  
“Kill the fuckers!” the leader shouted as the others grabs weapons and sprung into action.  
One of the nomads came close to the tall woman and she threw a punch to his stomach. Her arm lit up in cybernetic show of lights and as soon as her fist made impact with the mans’ chest, it exploded in a flurry of meat and gore. V turned the corner and fired three rounds in succession, pumping holes in a enemy’s neck and head.  
“Eat this sucker.” The Mox man shouted at an enemy as he drew close.  
His arms erupted as tow mantis blades were ushered forth, splitting the man in two pieces from his hip. A grotesque spectacle of blood and bile spilled forth, coating the dirt ground with the nomads remains. After with that strike, all that remained was the head of the group.  
“Fuck. This is bullshit.” He cursed as he then drew a heavy pistol and started taking pot shots at the trio.  
As V took cover as well as the other two, the leader then grabbed a woman out of a closet space and pointed the gun to her head, demanding they stay back as he closes in on an exit. V didn’t want to risk shooting the woman, so she closely followed him as he smashed through the door.  
As the group rushed out of the door, they found that he left he girl behind as he took one of the buggies and took off, kicking up dirt along the way. All seemed lost until the tall woman kneeled down and took aim with her long rifle. A cable ran from the optics of the gun and connected to the side of her head, giving her a clear view of the vehicle.  
As she slowed her breathing and the buggy gained distance, she let out a long breath and squeezed the trigger. the area around her kicked up dirt as the blowback of the rifle recoiled with such force. The bullet, whirled through the air, closing in on its target. Within just a few milliseconds, the round made contact with the rear axle, splitting it in two.  
“Oh nice. Where can I get one of those?” V looked over in amazement.  
“You can’t.” The tall woman replied.  
With a huff, V let it go and proceeded to drive out to get the man. He was disoriented as he struggled to get out of the buggy. V had all intentions to interrogate the guy and figure out why they would bother kidnapping a city girl.  
“What the hell man. You realize how much shit you put me through?” V started, clearly annoyed at it all.  
“Eat shit.” The man replied as he spat at her feet.  
Just as he said those words, the black man popped off a round and left a giant hole in the mans’ head, killing him instantly. V was taken back as blood spurted on her pants and jacket. Confused, she had no idea what to think other than she might be next.  
“Dude! What the fuck?” V stood, bringing her pistol to nestle on the man’s cheek.  
As V pointed her pistol at him, the tall woman with him turned her rifle to V, a stand-off she always tried to avoid; however, the man held up his hand to prevent any further bloodshed.  
“We were tasked to recover the woman, and we have accomplished that, with your help of course.” He began to explain as he remained calm.  
“Your compensation. I hope we may not have to meet each other after this.”  
V was handed a credit chit for her efforts. Something she wanted, but she had so many questions unanswered. Like the fact why a nomad group would want to kidnap a girl unless for a higher reason. She thought more as the two decided to get into a van that pulled up wit the woman in toe. And just like that, they were gone.  
“Well, I guess that’s that for you, but not for me.” V speaks to herself as she watched them travel across the dunes.  
She makes her way back through the building that is all shot up. Bodies on the ground that littered the floor inside from the shootout moments ago. She found herself in a small office with a computer that was locked. Next to the computer was a message chit that she may get some information from as to why.  
“Locked. Of course. But lucky me, I don’t play by the rules.” V smiles as she pulls out her neural cable to connect to the computer.  
With a few ticks and numbers, she found her way into the mainframe of the computer. She came across messages that dated around the time just before the woman was kidnapped. One of the messages reads…  
“I come to you with an ample opportunity to get a handsome amount of funding for your excursions, all you need to do is to complete the task…” the message reads on but shows a description of the woman they just rescued.  
“…upon completion and extraction of said implants, your reward will be delivered to you promptly. If you are to arrive with complications, be sure to see to them in a timely manner. -W-.”  
“Shit. This is the second time I’ve seen this ‘W’ guy.” V sits at the desk and contemplates what she has discovered.  
She finds herself not able to think much in her state, so she hops in the buggy and takes of for the entrance to the city. As the sun sets on the barrens, she decides to rough ride it, hitting dunes and turns like in her old days. Its not long before she comes back and hands the buggy back over to one of the Aldecabos. With a handshake and a hug, she then drives off and makes it back to her apartment with no incident.  
“fuck it, I’m going to go get fucked.” V changes cloths for a night out and proceeds to pus everything from the day, to the back of her mind.


End file.
